11/22/12

Natural hair care

Now that I have time to plan a natural hair care regime, I thought I’d share my outline for my hair.

Shampoo is pretty much a detergent, created as it works in both hard and soft water due to the alkaline waters most of us have flowing through out pipes. It strips the hair of all it’s protective oils, making it frizzy, weak, and dull. This hair is unmanageable, and we employ conditioner and other hair care products to offset the damage of daily shampooing. All of these products, including shampoo, are full of chemicals that we absorb through the pores in our skin, which are especially large when we’ve been basking under the flow of luxurious hot water.

Baking soda is a natural alternative to shampoo, and is effective in gently removing oil buildup from hair. The most common way I’ve heard it used is to simply dilute it in water and store it in a bottle in the bathroom for use as you would a shampoo. For conditioner, apple cider vinegar works well. It’s best to pour warm water on your hair first, pour the vinegar mixture on the end half of your hair, and then rinse with colder water to seal your hair cuticles. The standard ratio of baking soda and apple cider vinegar for water is 1 tablespoon per cup.

To add shine to my hair, I usually rinse it with tea. I’ve found my hair loves green tea with a hint of chamomile, but experiment. Some people prefer black tea over green on their hair. If you’re going to rinse with tea, rinse out the apple cider vinegar with warm water instead of cold, and douse your hair with cold tea, and then rinse lightly with cold water. The cold tea gets into your hair and closes the cuticle, leaving it shiny. A light rinse with some clean cold water just rinses off any tea that is sitting on top of your hair follicle.

To prevent split ends, I rub a tiny bit of oil on the tips of my hair. I have long hair, which means split ends are abundant if one is not vigilant. I’ve found that shea butter oil, sunflower oil, and coconut oil works wonderfully as they’re all very light (the shea butter is a tiny bit heavier, which works well if you have wavy or curly hair.)

My hair is naturally very straight, so when I want some extra shine and volume I spritz it with some warm, flat beer which works as a light mousse, and dries with no smell! In addition the malts and hops in the beer are beneficial for your hair, and it’s so lightweight that it doesn’t weigh down your hair while trying to volumize it.

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11/18/12

Drawing near

May our daily choices be a reflection of our deepest values, and may we use our voices to speak for those who need us most, those who have no voice, those who have no choice. It’s up to each one of us to create the world we want to live in; if not you, then who? If not now, then when? — Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

I went hiking with Kira and William today at Bear Mountain. At 4:15 the sun began to set, and we had just come out of the woods and into the field. The field was full of these plants with white tufts of seeds, the sun illuminated them beautifully. Winter is drawing near. I dream of smoke dancing out of my chimney and chilled hands clutching warm mugs of tea. I want to sleep in and read, spending my days thinking and reflecting.

09/28/12

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral.

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

–Aaron Freeman

09/3/12

touching

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.

It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”
- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

05/8/12

I do not want.

Awake on a strange couch at a friend’s apartment at 3 am, the silences seem different, foreign. I’ve been up since 6:30 yesterday morning, and am close to not having slept for 24 hours. These times seem prime to reflect on life choices.

What do I want in life? I do not want much. I want less. The more I have, the more I feel I am not living. I am reducing my wardrobe, reducing my packaging consumption, reducing my impact. And the more I do, the happier I seem. I am not ‘happy’ per say, I experience moments of happiness in greater abundance. It is not a constant thing. While it would be wonderful to be, such a life would diminish the preciousness of those moments.

I do not want to spend my day making sure I look alright, from doing makeup to deciding on one outfit out of many. Working from nine until five, struggling to keep up with ever enlarging invoices, stressing about deadlines, fashion, constructs of right and wrong.

I want acoustic music, voices, instruments. Soil under bare feet. Amazement, curiousity, marvels. Sweat, tears. Kisses, song. Drumbeats. Fresh food. New people, old people. Discoveries. Hard work, accomplishment, satisfaction.

I want to walk to the top of a mountain to meet the morning sun, and see my reflection in the wavering water of a dark stream instead of the harsh glare of a mirror under artificial light.

I want notebooks, sketchbooks journals, records of life.

I want happiness.

And happiness is only achieved without “I want”.

04/22/12

Tiger tiger, fading fast.

Tiger tiger fading fast
in the shadow we have cast,
what brave law or business deal
can thy future’s safety seal.

What the future, what the hope
that humankind may learn to cope
with life and maintenance of breath
without this need of needless death.

In what sulphurous cauldron groans
the mind that lives to sell your bones;
and what the moral poverty
of those take thy life from thee?

What the learning, what the thought
that values lives like yours at naught?
What the science or machine
where beauty such as yours is seen?

Who did he hate who sowed the seed
of human ignorance and greed;
and can he smile our work to see
as we who killed the lamb kill thee.

Tiger tiger fading fast
from the present to the past,
how can mere humanity
so quickly still thy majesty?

Redux of my favorite poem by William Blake, The Tyger, done with an environmental crisis focus by Gordon Ramel.